One might have more sympathy for Democratic Party objections to President Donald Trump’s mass deportation efforts if it would just work with the administration to help remove illegal immigrant criminals from the country. But, as the case of Marvin Morales-Ortez in Fairfax County, Virginia, shows, Democrats refuse to cooperate with federal immigration law enforcement on even the most violent of cases, and innocent people are dead as a result.
It remains unclear when exactly Morales-Ortez, a citizen of El Salvador, first entered the United States. But, authorities have confirmed that he had no legal authorization to be in the country. It’s also known that he has been living in Fairfax County since 2020, and during that time, he has racked up seven arrests ranging from petty larceny to assault to first-degree murder. In all but one of these cases, George Soros-funded District Attorney Steve Descano chose not to prosecute Morales-Ortez. Even when Morales-Ortez was convicted of theft, he was sentenced to just a fine, which he never paid.
Most recently, Morales-Ortez was arrested by the Fairfax County Police Department for brandishing a gun and assaulting and injuring someone. Again, Descano chose not to prosecute him, at which point Sheriff Stacey Kincaid, another Democrat, chose not to honor an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainer for Morales-Ortez’s arrest. As an illegal immigrant, ICE could have swiftly moved him out of Fairfax County and back to his native El Salvador.
Instead, Kincaid released Morales-Ortez back onto the streets, where, less than 24 hours later, he allegedly shot and killed a man in Reston.
“The sanctuary politicians of Fairfax County, VA have blood on their hands,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement. “The day after Fairfax County refused to hand over Marvin Fernando Morales-Ortez, a criminal illegal alien from El Salvador, to ICE he allegedly murdered an American citizen. He has a prior history of aggravated assault, larceny, assault on a law enforcement officer, weapons charges and other misdemeanor offenses.”
We usually do not like to blame otherwise innocent people for the criminal actions of other people. But, in this case, the Trump administration is correct: the anti-ICE Democrats of Fairfax County have blood on their hands. If they had just cooperated with ICE and honored the agency’s request to hold Morales-Ortez for deportation proceedings, a man in Reston would not be dead.
TRUMP’S POT PANDER WILL GO UP IN SMOKE
The Morales-Ortez killing comes after Democrats in Washington refused to honor an ICE detainer for Kamalpreet Singh, another illegal immigrant who killed an American citizen, this time a father of two. And in Tennessee, another illegal immigrant, this time from China, was using his New York state commercial driver’s license when he caused a four-car pile-up that killed another innocent American citizen.
Democrats insist their sanctuary policies are about compassion, fairness, and public safety. The growing list of dead Americans exposes that claim as a lie. These are not abstract policy disputes or victimless bureaucratic choices. They are deliberate decisions to ignore federal law, release known offenders, and gamble with innocent lives. Cooperation with ICE does not require mass roundups or indiscriminate deportations; it requires the bare minimum of removing violent illegal immigrants who repeatedly demonstrate they do not belong on American streets. Until Democrats abandon ideological hostility toward immigration enforcement, more innocent people will die, and the responsibility will rest squarely with those who refuse to act.